Nothing Stranger
by Akazato
Summary: Stuck together on a summer trip, Mimi and Yamato are forced to spend dreaded time together as they wait for the return of Taichi & Sora. A friendship fic more than anything else, or rather lack of friendship. One shot.


NOTHING STRANGER

BY AKAZATO

Light rain, a light sky yet with charcoal-gray clouds, everything cast in a yellow hue. Bright sun behind and to the side, where it dully sent stray rays. Moist and a slight chill. Her skin and clothes dampened slowly, long sleeves sticking slightly, bare legs freezing where skirt and boots failed to cover. Waiting was madness, minutes too measured and tedious.

Umbrellas were unneeded; the way she liked it most.

The mild traffic behind them, cars on the street moving past, added to the silent surroundings of trees and wet empty pavement. She listened for more, but nothing came. She'd wanted to see people passing by, casual happy walks, she didn't get that either.

She just wanted them back, picking them both up and leaving for dinner like they'd planned. Taichi and Sora made promises to be there and get her and Ishida. So far she wondered if they remembered.

Two occupied benches sat side by side.

Mimi in one, Yamato in the other. He sat to the very back of his, facing her with one leg on the bench, the other placed on the ground. She sat facing forward in the corner farthest from his bench.

They didn't talk, because talking wasn't the usual occurrence between the two.

This, in silence, was the way it always was, the way it always had to be. There would be no deviation from the non-spoken agreement they had. Only words spoken would be for extreme purposes, meaning peril in some way, or urgent business such as the arrival of impending friends. That's just the way it was, and would be for that summer evening.

Things were always that way, and they were both used to it by now. It came second nature.

After too long, she struggled for comfort. Several positions later, she was most comfortable seated facing her hushed friend Yamato, legs sprawled out straight atop the bench. The bar her back rested against bit through her thin top and she squirmed for a softer spot, which she knew didn't exist. She ignored it and straightened out her blue shadow-striped skirt, touching the very edge to just above her knees.

The deepest blue that she loved, almost black like the starless sky on a very calm night.

She smiled to herself, then glanced up to the man opposite her. Eyes of dark blue met her very light brown ones and she started. She felt the wet droplets on her hands, her face, everywhere skin tingled and she took in a chilled breath. For so long she had fallen into the illusion of solitude, sitting there staring off into vacant spaces of city.

To her, he was unexpected somehow. Then his eyes disappeared almost completely.

Nothing seemed stranger than him staring at her right then. She couldn't understand it. Couldn't even see his eyes. Blue eyes she'd seen many times before, yet never for too long. Gazes torn away fast as if it were wrong. This seemed wrong to her.

The right thing to do came to mind.

Just to look away…everything, the world would shift properly back into place. Blue eyes she couldn't see, hidden by dark shades of black and brown. Glasses so unnecessary, hand placed so casually at his temple, slouched back and placid smile. The very dim outline of eyes, irises unmoving, eyes blinking indifferently in her direction.

Nothing so simple, it seemed, could be done.

"_Just ask…_"

An inhaled gasp as if she thought him wax. So low she only felt it. Her eyes darted away, found a safer spot to watch unconcernedly. Wet polka dotted cement under a line of thick-leaved trees. Then there was his voice again…a sort of weighted echo. He probably thought her immature. She couldn't let that stick. She looked back with a forced look of interest…no trace of awkwardness.

"Ask what?"

The corner of his mouth twitched into a fleeting smirk.

"To take these off."

Her eyebrows narrowed and she looked him over.

"…Your what?"

One hand tipped to tap at his sunglasses.

"Ah," was her only reply and they slipped back into broad silence.

He sighed, opening his mouth as if to speak, but then shutting it. She saw him do so and thought he was only taking a deep breath for yet another sigh. She was wrong. He had something to say.

"It's killing you. It's obviously annoying the heck out of you. Why else would you—"

"No, it—"

He shot her a scolding look for interrupting him, satisfactorily silencing her to let him continue freely.

"Why else would you have been giving me such a fixed stare?"

She thought over if it was an actual question, or if he was just telling her that. To save time, she went with the latter.

"I really didn't notice."

A real smile this time, and lasting.

"You were looking right at me…I think you noticed."

A very slight smile appeared on her face.

"Yeah, you're right."

He gave a nod.

"It's irritating you though."

"It's really not."

He grinned, then started in a voice not of his own,

"_Why won't he take those things off…no sun…just rain and damp lenses…drives me fu_—"

"No. No, that's not what I'm thinking, or wa—"

"Just ask."

"Yamato, I don't care."

"I want to hear you say it."

"Keep them on, I don't care."

"Fine."

"_Fine_."

And that was the end of it for a very long time. He continued his stare of her, and she acted as if she had no knowledge of him doing so. They looked a rather odd pair sitting there, one pretending the other didn't exist but only feet away and humming, the other unapparent to her Yamato-free fantasy and thoroughly interested in just looking at her. He, in black and blue and looking ready for the true summer weather; she in white and blue and looking ready for fall to arrive any minute. They would appear strangers to one another by any passerby to come upon the two. But none came for a very long while.

They were both forced to endure the immeasurable distance between them. Both wishing one wish of fast arrivals of friends. The rain picked up suddenly, forming fuller droplets to fall upon them. Mimi hissed at the cool intensified contact, Yamato adjusted his glasses.

"You don't mind it?"

She shook her head, wet hair sticking to her face.

"I swear."

He shook his head as well, except his hair was too heavily gelled for any mistakes such as hers.

"The rain." She looked bewildered. He told her, "I meant the rain."

"Oh." She smiled at her blunder. "No, I don't mind at all…just that…"

"What?"

"I wish I had an umbrella right now."

He laughed.

"I…" he started, "happen to have one. He reached to his side and withdrew a small compact umbrella. "But, I don't think I'm willing to share it. Especially not with you. I'd rather see you suffer."

She made a very disconcerted face, then realized he must be joking.

"I wish you would," she told him, pushing more hair out of her face in vain as it just came falling back.

"I don't think that'd be best."

"Why?"

"Taichi warned me to stay away from you."

"_What_?"

"He told me it would seem the natural thing to do…for us to get together during this trip. Since Taichi and Sora would be together, that'd leave us two _non-together_ people, as he put it, and we'd get together in convenience…or something. Said that'd be the worst thing possible of things to happen on this trip. He said it'd be over once we reached the shores of Japan and it'd be horrible ever after."

He said it with a smile.

Her mouth was open. She knew it but did nothing to fix it. Stunned, she could do nothing but let out a short laugh.

"He's lost his mind," was all that came out.

He was grinning again.

"Something like that, right? Sora was there when he told me. She said that we were two mature people and could make up our own minds. We could—_can_ do whatever we want, and some other crap that I can't remember. In the end, she thought it was a bad idea too," he was saying very casually. Then casting a look around them, he said, "_And where the heck are they_…"

She was shivering now, arms wrapped around her body and staring at the pale space between knee-high brown boots and blue skirt. Yamato's voice was distant in her mind, barely focusing on his words, and she realized vaguely that Taichi and Sora were keeping him from sharing his umbrella with her. She cursed.

"What was that? Sounded like _son of a..._to me…"

She could hear the smile in his words and she wished he'd just shut up and share already.

"I'd never say that, thanks, Yama."

"Of course."

"Why do they think I'm so wrong for you?" she found herself saying. Anger growing for the two idiots who were forcing him to keep his distance, and his umbrella. "Why can't I—"

"They didn't say that."

"That's what they meant by all of that. Just because we don't talk much, or…or are as close as everyone else doesn't—"

"I think that's _exactly _the reason, Mimi."

"But we're talking now!"

He nodded once.

"Amazingly so, yeah."

She looked back up to him and couldn't take the desperate look off her face as hard as she tried.

"Well then I think that's good enough, right?"

He sat up from his slouch and opened the black umbrella.

"Sure it is."

She was pleased with that. And even more pleased when he got up and started to walk the short distance over to her. She smiled. His smile was gone however, once he reached the front of her bench and stopped. She looked up to his unsmiling face, eyes hidden under dark lenses, and an intimidating air about him. He looked at her like that for a while, then swept off his glasses and tucked them into his jeans pocket. She watched his unveiled gaze drift over the length of her; wet waves of brown hair to brown boots. She went pink at his appraisal and pulled her legs back abruptly, allowing him room to sit down. He smiled very faintly at her badly hidden embarrassment.

"Thanks for taking your lovely legs away and allowing me room to share this umbrella with you, Mimi," he said, and sat down next to her. Their sides touching, sticking together in their wetness as they squished to share the small umbrella.

She fully blushed then, but was glad for his humor, and most of all her shelter under the open umbrella they shared.

"Thank you, Yamato."

A sigh, then a short,

"Yeah."

The rain picked up again. Her legs became drenched, water filling her boots. She cringed. His lower half was also soaked, but he didn't seem to mind as much as she, and was also not shivering like her. He was staring ahead at a couple walking past a ways off on an opposite sidewalk. They had no umbrella yet were walking leisurely and chatting so loudly that a dull version could be heard by Yamato and Mimi where they sat. Mimi watched them pass by too, and she wondered why they didn't care, what made them so uncaringly happy to feel just as fine walking drenched in the rain as on any normal clear day. Yamato seemed unknowing of her discomfort, her shivering, or any muttered curses she was producing. She began to a feel very sickening, dull ache in her, and she wished deeply for him to be replaced with someone such as Taichi or even his younger brother Takeru. They would've put an arm around her, tried to warm her up and make her feel better.

She got nothing from Yamato.

She almost wanted to cry. Stuck in the rain, miserable, with someone who couldn't care less if she was there or not. Not to mention she was sure her boots were ruined. She choked back a sob she knew no tears were behind.

"…_You think they're stuck out there like this, too_?"

Her head shot up from its droop at his muttered words. _Taichi and Sora_. She didn't care about them right now. She only hoped they were stuck in the same position as them.

"Probably not….no."

He laughed.

"_Ugh. _The rain. The rain strands you with too small umbrellas and freezing pretty girls. I hate the rain."

His words were so contradictory to any actions he'd ever showed towards her, or previous words spoken, that they sent her adrift for a moment, lost in their lies. He didn't think she was pretty, he didn't care she was freezing, and she was sure he _loved_ the rain.

He was smiling.

"You keep up your silence like that and it's going to make me take back this umbrella."

"Gosh, please don't."

He chuckled again.

"I wasn't going to. You're desperate for it."

"I want to kill myself."

He ignored her completely.

"You know, I only brought up that sunglasses thing to make you talk to me."

"What?"

"You weren't going to say anything, right?"

"No..."

"So I had to."

"Why'd you have to then? We never—"

"Taichi and Sora have to be proved wrong. I bet they thought I wouldn't even share this umbrella with you."

"You almost didn't," she reminded him heatedly.

"Ah, but that's not the point. I'm sitting here right now sharing this umbrella with you…saving the most important half of you from being soaked."

She couldn't help her smile.

"Well thanks again."

She still received no '_you're welcome,' _only a nod.

"It's the least I can do, seeing as we're both waiting for the same two people."

"I hate them. I _hate _them."

"You hate your two best friends."

"I hate you too."

He seemed totally unfazed, his expression unchanging.

"Alright."

"You all think I'm…"

"What do we think you are?"

"Below you."

He laughed a very loud and irritating laugh to her.

"You're crazy."

"Well it's true, and I simply can't stand any of you right now."

Once again, he ignored her and went on to something new,

"Michael…you only got to see him for a while. You still—"

"I'm not talking to you about him."

"I only wanted to know if you were still—"

"No. Just _shut up_."

"Fine."

"Us talking was a bad idea. You never should have opened your mouth."

"Well it was the polite thing to do," he said dully.

"Polite…you're never polite with me."

"Today I was."

She wanted to get as far away from him as possible, but she'd rather die than leave from under that umbrella. Seeing Michael had been a horrible experience, bringing back things that never should have been revisited. The things they talked about…she didn't want to remember those, had strictly told herself to stay away from all that stuff, yet he pulled them in anyway and it only got worse from there…

"I wanted to make him hate me. I got exactly what I wanted."

"Michael?"

She nodded, shifting slightly closer as the first draft of wind all day swept by.

"I wish we hadn't run into him…I don't know why I left with him. Why didn't you all stop me?"

He shrugged.

"How were we supposed to know what you'd get into if you left with him? He seemed…"

"What? Nice, pleasa—"

"I hated him to tell you the truth."

She looked over and saw him smiling. She looked back to the rain-splattering sidewalk.

"You didn't even know him."

"It was enough, and I couldn't stand him."

"Well, you were right about it…"

"Sora really liked him though, told Taichi that and meant to tell you but never got a chance to. You went back to his place for the day while we were out shopping…_An awful day that was._"

"Yours couldn't have been worse than mine."

"Probably not."

She sighed.

"Broke my heart, Ishida," she told him.

"Broke your heart…what a horrible, miserable bastard…"

She laughed.

"Broke it twice."

"Twice?"

"Once when I was living in America those years…then this trip back. He's horrible."

"I think I already covered that."

They looked over at the same time, shared the same grin. She turned back to watching the tips of her boots.

"You've actually managed to make me feel a little better…I'm amazed."

"Well I was bound to make you smile one day. _Today's the day_…" he said it very detached, like he was watching this scene unfold from a long ways off. It didn't affect him all the way through.

She closed her eyes. This wasn't such a bad moment, she thought. She never would have guessed this scene— ever. Sitting content with Yamato in the rain under one umbrella, stuck with nothing but meager conversation and wet, wet clothes. It wasn't so bad. She let herself relax against him, her one side a lot warmer than the rest of her body from the contact, and her head feeling a bit warmer than everything else as well. He was stiff for only a second once she let herself sag into him, then he was just as relaxed as she. At least she hoped. She knew how weird this was for them, and she didn't want to impose on him. After all, he was already sharing his precious umbrella.

"Is this okay?"

His words came after long moments; she guessed thinking of what she meant,

"…It's fine."

"Are you sure?" she asked even as she let her head droop to his shoulder, wet, slightly matted hair her pillow.

"Girls do this all the time, don't worry."

She smiled.

"I'm sure they do…and a whole lot more, right?"

"Of course a whole lot more…"

Her eyes still closed, she let herself be happy with him there for a moment, breathed in the scent of rain and Yamato. She loved it. In her mind, she'd gained a new friend she'd never known she had had. Almost like they were meeting again after a very long break, where the first meeting had been very insufficient and this was truly their first meeting.

"Any girl other than you, they'd have to _earn_ this umbrella."

"Oh but you forgot Sora…"

"No…no Sora'd have to earn it too."

She laughed again.

"You're just in luck you've got a broken heart. Kindheartedness comes free with every broken heart. And you've got two…"

"He smashed it."

"Bastard."

"Tore it out, ripped it apart—"

"—with his teeth," Yamato finished for her.

But she wasn't finished,

"—with his teeth, threw it to the ground, stomped on it, ground it into fine powder with his stupid ugly shoes, collected it in his nasty hands and blew it away to the wind."

"Ow."

"I hate him."

"But I thought you hated me, Sora, and Taichi?"

"I hate him the most."

"I think you should take me off the list."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I've been sitting here freezing and you haven't offered any of your warmth to me, but let me sit here suffering, and I know you knew how cold I was."

He waited a few moments, looking ahead in silent thought, then gave a quick glance around them and finally wrapped his arms around her. She was momentarily in heaven, pressed against his warmth, enveloped in it, her face smashed to his chest and one of her arms loosely around him. But then it was gone as quickly as it came. He let her go hastily and continued his stare of the street. Despite how brief it was, she smiled. It was just enough for her. He'd just crossed a major hurdle in their friendship, and she was happy he'd crossed it. It wasn't like being around a stranger anymore, she actually knew this person. Could actually call him a friend without thinking twice about it.

"You still cold?"

"Yes. Your hug was…I think two seconds."

He laughed.

"It was longer," He let his right arm slip to her wet back, up more to just below her shoulders. It felt strange while he grew accustomed to it, then as she molded herself back to his side and her head rested on his shoulder, it was normal finally. "and you're lucky you got anything."

"Ah…I forgot we weren't supposed to _get together_."

"Taichi will be devastated we've actually made friends for the day…Sora will be amazed."

She nodded contentedly against him. "I'm glad this happ—"

"Yamato! Mimi!"

They both jolted from each other at the sound of their names being called by familiar voices. The umbrella went to the ground, causing them both to emit curses as their upper halves were pelted with cold rain. Mimi was grasping at her hair, refusing anymore damage be done, Yamato was fumbling for the umbrella.

Mimi was hauled up from around the waist by Yamato, the umbrella back in his hand, and willed forward toward the waiting Taichi and Sora who shared a much larger blue umbrella. Mimi's hands were fisted in her hair, muttering,

"No. _No_!"

He only laughed and pulled her along with him. She seemed unwilling to move, spending too much thought on her hair than moving to _get out_ of the rain. They finally reached their grinning, and surprisingly dry, friends who eyed them both. He saw their eyes linger on his arm at her waist; he drew it away fast and went slightly pink in the face.

"Don't _ever_ leave me with her again."

END

THANKS FOR READING

NOTES…

1. I had a lot of fun with this story...for a while, then it just died. The ending, I despise it, wish I could have written a better one that's for sure...

2. For some reason…Yamato, Mimi, Sora, and Taichi decided to take a summer trip to America…hmm. And apparently Michael's actually a jerk. Who knew…He seemed so sweet…


End file.
